Power tools are commonly used across all aspects of industry and in the homes of consumers. Power tools are employed for multiple applications including, for example, drilling, tightening, sanding, and/or the like. For some drilling and fastening operations, positive feed tools may be preferred. Positive feed tools are often used to perform operations on workpieces such as steel, aluminum, titanium and composites, and may employ a tool feeding mechanism that feeds a bit into the workpiece at a controlled rate. Such tools are common in the aviation industry, and other industries in which precise drilling is needed in metallic workpieces or other hard workpieces.
Drilling holes, and particularly drilling deep holes within workpieces that are hard, using conventional methods can typically produce long drilled chips that are difficult to evacuate from the hole. These long chips are generated because the bit is fed into the workpiece at a constant feed rate (e.g., 0.003 inches per revolution). The constant feed rate means that the chips will have a constant thickness (i.e., 0.003 inches) that leads to a spiral shaped chip forming and growing as the drilling operation proceeds. The chips may end up being multiple hole diameters long, and can cause chip packing. The chips can therefore cause additional torque to be required, and can lead to longer cycle times and poor hole quality.
To address this issue, variation or oscillation of the feed rate may be introduced. By varying the feed rate (e.g., changing the feed rate by 0.001 to 0.005 inches per revolution), the resulting chips will have a variable thickness that alternates between thin and thick sections. This variable thickness will cause the chips to tend to break at the thin sections, and enable the remainder of the chip to be evacuated more easily. This method may be referred to as micro-peck drilling because the cutter (e.g., the bit) stays in the material and is always cutting a chip. If the amplitude is increased to exceed the feed rate, then macro-peck drilling results in which the cutter is actually removed from contact with the material of the workpiece.
Micro-peck drilling methods that are currently employed typically use special thrust bearings that have oscillating cam profiles. However, these special thrust bearings are typically very expensive and have limited life spans.